Jordan king tells Peres settlements hinder peace

Jordan's King Abdullah II told visiting Israeli President Shimon Peres on Monday that Israel's settlement building on Palestinian land posed a "serious obstacle" to peace efforts, the palace said.

"Israel must stop unilateral measures, particularly settlement building, which is a serious obstacle to peace efforts," the king told Peres, who was in Amman on a brief and previously unannounced visit.

The king and Peres, whose countries signed a 1994 peace treaty, discussed the "means to revive Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations and remove obstacles facing them in line with a two-state solution," the palace added.

"The Israeli president talked about efforts that Israel can make in the coming phase to build trust with the Palestinian Authority," it said without elaborating.

The meeting comes a week after the king held talks in Ramallah with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on his first visit to the West Bank in more than a decade.

Israeli-Palestinian talks came to a halt in September 2010 when Israel ended a moratorium on construction in the occupied territories.